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HIERODU´LI

HIERODU´LI (ἱερόδουλοι) were persons of both sexes who were devoted, like
slaves, to the worship of the gods. They were of Eastern origin, and are
most frequently met with in connexion with the worship of the deities of
Syria, Phoenicia, and Asia Minor. They consisted of two classes: one
composed of slaves properly so called, who attended to all the lower duties
connected with the worship of the gods, cultivated the sacred lands,
&c., and whose descendants continued in the same servile condition;
and the other, comprising persons who were personally free, but had
dedicated themselves as slaves to the gods, and who were either attached to
the temples or were dispersed throughout the country and brought to the gods
the money they had gained. To the latter class belonged the women, who
prostituted their persons and presented to the gods the money they had
obtained by these means. The pomp with which religious worship was
celebrated in the East, and the vast domains which many of the temples
possessed, required a great number of servants and slaves. Thus the great
temple at the Cappadocian Comana possessed as many as 6,000 hieroduli (Strab. xii. p.535), and that at Morimene had
3,000 of the same class of persons (Strab. xii.
p.537). So numerous were the hieroduli at Tyre, that the
high-priest by their support frequently obtained the regal dignity (Joseph.
c. Apion. 1.18, 21). These large numbers arose from the
idea, prevalent in the East, that the deity must have a certain class of
persons specially dedicated to his service and separated from the ordinary
duties of life, and that it was the duty of all who had the power to supply
as many persons as they could for their service. Thus, kings dedicated as
sacred slaves the prisoners whom they took in war, parents their children,
and even persons of the highest families sent their daughters to the temples
to sacrifice their chastity to the gods, at least till the time of their
marriage. This practice of females offering their chastity to the gods was
of ancient origin in the East, and seems to have arisen from the notion that
the gods ought to have the first-fruits of everything. The custom prevailed
at Babylon (Hdt. 1.199; Strab. xvi. p.745), as well as in many other
places. (Comp. Heyne, DeBabylonioruminstitutoreligioso, &c. in Comment. Societ.
Götting. vol. xvi. p. 30, &c.) The
Greek temples had of course slaves to perform the lowest services (Paus. 10.32.8); but we also find mention in
some Greek temples of free persons of both sexes, who had dedicated
themselves voluntarily to the services of some god, and to whom the term
of hieroduli was generally applied. We find,
again, predial slaves attached to temples, and cultivating their sacred
domains (τεμένη) on condition, like the
Helots and the Thessalian Penestae, of contributing to the temple a
large fixed share of the produce. Such were the Craugallidae (or
Acragallidae, Aeschin. c. Ctes. § 107) in the
plain below Delphi; they were probably a remnant of the ancient
inhabitants, the Dryopes, reduced to serfdom at an early period
(Müller. Dor. 2.3.3). Such also
were the Venerei of Mount Eryx, though they seem to have included
freedmen as well as slaves (Cic. in
Verr. 2.8, § 21 ff.; 38.92 ff.); with these
we may class the Martiales at Larinum in Southern Italy (Cic. Clu. 15.44). Masters who wished to
give slaves their freedom, but were prevented by various causes from
manumitting them, presented them to some temple as ἱερόδουλοι under the form of a gift or a sale, and thus
procured for them liberty in reality. Such cases of manumission
frequently occur in inscriptions, and are explained at length by Curtius
(deManumissionesacraGraecorum, in
his Anecdota Delphica, Berlin, 1843, p. 10, &c.;
comp. Plut. Amat. 100.21, τῶνἄλλωνδεσποτῶνκαὶἀρχόντωνἐλεύθεροικαὶἄφετοικαθάπερἱερόδουλοιδιατελοῦσιν). The female
hieroduli, who prostituted their persons, are only found in Greece
connected with the worship of divinities who were of Eastern origin, or
many of whose religious rites were borrowed from the East. This was the
case with Aphrodite, who was originally an Oriental goddess. At her
temple at Corinth there were a thousand ἱερόδουλοιἑταῖραι (cf. HETAERAE), and there was also a large number of
the same class of women at her temple at Eryx, in Sicily. (Strab. viii. p.378, vi. p. 272; cf.
xii. p. 559.) (Hirt, Die Hierodulen, with appendices by
Boeckh and Buttmann, Berlin, 1818; Kreuser, Der Hellenen
Priesterstaat, mit vorzüglicher Rücksicht auf die
Hierodulen, Mainz, 1824; Mövers, Die
Phönizier, p. 359, &c.; Hermann, Gottesd.
Alterth. § 20, n. 13-16; Schömann,
Antiq. 1.134 E. T.)